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The Link Between Induction and Employee Engagement

If induction is done properly, the whole organisation can benefit from highly motivated employees.

By Martin Kahn

Martin is Oakwood's Associate Learning Consultant and works in our Associate TeamMore from Martin >>

Despite overwhelming evidence that proper Induction
procedures increase levels of employee engagement and retention, only one fifth
of organisations undertaking specific retention initiatives are taking steps to
improve their induction process as they do not rate this as an effective
retention solution. (CIPD Resource and Talent Planning Survey 2017).

Employees are most likely to be highly engaged during their
probation period with many companies reporting the highest levels of employee
engagement within their first three months of employment. However, even with
this in mind, my most recent group of CIPD students told me that in order to
comply with nationalisation figures, very often an employee will get signed off
to permanent status within an organisation despite demonstrating low levels of
engagement in the hope that these will rise after their Induction/Probation
period.

The reality is that they almost never do which reminds me of a saying
one of my first managers used to tell me: “Recruit in haste, repent at leisure”.
Too often a ‘best of the bad bunch’ recruitment strategy is deployed out of
fear of not meeting nationalisation targets or having a recruitment freeze put
on the vacancy if it is not filled within a certain time frame. Not only does
this have a direct effect on the new employee, but these companies also
experience higher levels of disengagement from their existing staff who do not
want to carry the new dead weight on the team. Managers are often tested to the
limit trying to re-engage their staff whilst at the same time trying to make
the new starter feel welcome and accepted.

If induction is done properly, and the correct assessment
methods are used to monitor and evaluate new starters, then the whole company
can benefit by highly motivated employees who are more than willing to ‘go the
extra mile’ and demonstrate the positive effects of corporate citizenship. The
company gets a ‘fit for purpose’ employee and can begin its talent pooling or
succession planning along with forecasting its L&D requirements much
earlier on with highly engaged employees.

Whilst the aim of a well put together induction process is
to increase employee engagement, there can often be a misalignment of job
expectation post induction course that erodes engagement over time. Fifteen
years ago, I redesigned my own organisation’s induction course to make it more
relevant and significantly more exciting as research showed me that our company
was suffering unusually high levels of staff turnover even for a sales-based
organisation. This was due to a number of factors.

Firstly, managers did not
plan their recruitment strategy in line with induction course timings, which
lead to a highly motivated and engaged employee starting up to 6 weeks prior to
an induction course being run and having to learn on the fly or wait until they
could be inducted properly into the organisation. Many left. Secondly, the
actual induction course was not particularly inspiring. Nothing had been done
to it for over 10 years and much of the content was dated with a tired look and
feel. Another reason for many fresh graduates to look for employment elsewhere is
the gap between expectation and reality.

Overhauling the entire induction
course to include a far more facilitated and interactive approach rather than
the traditional ‘broadcast’ approach, where new starters are bombarded with
information, greatly increased their feeling of being valued. After running an
engagement survey, we were happy to report that engagement levels had gone up
by over 15% in the first three months alone and after the first year, our
retention rate had increased by almost 50% saving the company significant
recruitment and training costs.

If companies are to pay more than lip service to the concept
of employee engagement it must start right at the beginning of the employee
life cycle to create enriched, enabled and engaged employees who are more brand
loyal and significantly more productive than their unengaged counterparts.

At Oakwood International, we offer customised in-house training programs as well as accredited CIPD, CIM and ILM qualifications that will help you achieve your personal and professional objectives. We are an accredited provider and we are proud to say that our educational services permit has been approved by KHDA.